Wes O’Donnell is the Founder and Creative Director of WarriorLodge.com and the owner of MD-Advantages Healthcare and Modern Workspace Tech Furniture. He holds the US Patent on the OmniCart Modular Medical Cart System and has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration/ IT Management. Wes lives near Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, with his wife, three awesome kids and his snow dog.

“Entrepreneurship is jumping out of an airplane, and assembling your parachute on the way down.”
-Wes O’Donnell”

Description:

“RISE is the veteran’s eCommerce business guide with step by step instructions for starting your own business and guiding it to profitability. Military veteran entrepreneur Wes O’Donnell leads the way with crucial insights, tips and a wealth of veteran-specific resources that are available along the journey. The book also includes appendices filled with veteran specific information like Starting a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and Small Business Administration Resources that are available exclusively to veterans. In addition, veterans interested in entrepreneurship can interact directly with the author regarding topics not covered in the book at the author’s Veteran Assistance website, Warrior Lodge. Join the Veteran Uprising!”

My Two Cents:

While there is a lot of motivational “hype” in this book, like most self-help guides, it’s also heavily packed with detailed, real world examples. Not just rehashed generalities you find online. For example, sample query letters to prospective suppliers and the nuts and bolts of back-end sale processing operations.

I enjoyed the straight to the point, here’s what works and here’s what’s a waste of time/money writing style. That’s also a nice touch how the author shares so many embarrassing mistakes he made with his own online businesses.

Now, I can’t say I fully agree with the author’s warnings against sharing ownership, however. Throughout the guide, he continually assumes you are a lone wolf and that’s the best way to go. Still, the nitty gritty details of running a business he provides are dead on.

Maybe I’m a little biased, since I recently started an offline B2B services firm and have been looking for ways to drive it more online. I’m precisely the target audience. Either way, this book is exactly what I was looking for. Extremely insightful. I discovered several missed opportunities in my own sales strategy and even a few mistakes in my day to day workflow.

I highly recommend Rise to any veteran or civilian looking for a good how-to guide for setting up an eCommerce business and nursing it to profitability.